What's hot: Stereo solution in a small package, you can exchange headphones, easy to use.

What's not: Limited Bluetooth features.

Jabra is a big brand in Bluetooth headset industry, and in addition to making mono Bluetooth headsets and in-car speakers, the company is making more stereo headset solutions for mobile phone users who listen to music, play movies and games as well as make calls. Among the stereo headsets, the Jabra Clipper has a unique design. It comes in a Bluetooth clip and a 3.5mm stereo earbud style headphone. It puts Bluetooth chip, call and music playback controls, mic and LED indicators all on the clip, so that you can either use the included headset or if you have preferred headphones, you can use them with the clip instead via the 3.5mm audio jack on the clip. The Jabra Clipper has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and eSCO built-in and supports Headset, Hands-Free, A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles.

Design

The Jabra Clipper has a clean design and is easy to use. The Bluetooth clip has a soft touch surface, and it feels nice in hand. It does attract dust and lint, but you can clean it with a damped towel. The metal clip is very strong and sturdy. If you are clipping it to your shirt or jacket, just slide into the edge of your clothing and push the clip in. If you are clipping it over a zippered edge, you will need to open the clip wider which takes a bit of strength. The front of the Jabra Clipper has a control dial that's raised to give you tactile feel. The control dial includes three buttons: at the center is the multi-function button and above it is the volume up button and below it the volume down button. Three tiny LED light live above the control dial and they indicate charging and pairing status as well as incoming call notifications.

The wired headset comes with three sets of ear buds in small, medium and large sizes. Be sure to try them on and find the best size for your ears. The wired headset doesn't have outgoing mic, and relies on the Bluetooth clip for outgoing voice. This means you need to position the clip close to where your voice travels, and the headset also makes sure of that as the right earbud has a short cord so that the Bluetooth clip isn't far from you when you use the headset.

Pairing and Features

Pairing the Jabra Clipper is easy and painless. The first time you turn on the Clipper, it will go into pairing mode automatically and the blue LED turns solid. Use your phone to discover and pair with the Clipper. For subsequent pairing, press and hold the multi-function button while the Clipper is off until the blue LED light turns solid on (about 6 seconds), now the Clipper is ready to pair with your phone. The Jabra Clipper supports multi-pairing, although it couldn't keep simultaneous connect between the iPhone 4S and another Android phone in our test while paired with them.

As the Jabra Clipper supports both hands-free and A2DP/AVRCP profiles, it can control music playback on your phone as well as call handling. To smart music playback, press the multi-function button quickly and press it again to stop playing. The volume buttons on the Jabra Clipper give you quick access to volume controls, and if you press and hold the volume buttons you can fast-forward or rewind tracks as well. If you are playing music while a call comes in, you can just press the multi-function button to accept the call or press and hold to reject it. Music playback will resume automatically after you've handled the call. The volume buttons also change voice levels in calls, and by tapping quickly on both volume up and volume down buttons simultaneously, you can mute and unmuate your voice during a call. You can take advantage of another Bluetooth Hands-Free feature, redialing last number, by double tapping the multi-function button while the phone is in standby (music not playing). We tested these features on several phones including the iPhone 4, LG Spectrum, Samsung Galaxy S II and Pantech Burst, and they all worked well.

Audio Quality and Range

The stereo headset has decent audio quality with loud volume. It's a bit of tinny for music playback and watching movies, but for voice calls it sounds clear and loud. You can exchange it with your own favorite headset or headphone if you wish to improve music and movie audio quality. We tested the Jabra Clipper with several Android phones and iPhone 4S, and found the headset had similarly good audio quality for calls for both incoming and outgoing voice with good DSP for noise cancelling.

The Jabra Clipper mirrors your phone's audio, which means that you will hear the same ringtone on your phone as well as via the headset when a call is coming in. The range between the Bluetooth clip and phones is about 15-20 feet depending on the phone. When you are about to go out of range, the audio starts to break up.

Battery Life

The Jabra Clipper has a built-in rechargeable battery. It comes with an AC charger and takes about 2 hours to fully charge. The LED will turn green from red once the clipper is fully charged. For those who like to consolidate their charging cable, be aware that the Jabra Clipper doesn't come with a USB cable for charging, but you can use your phone's 5-pin USB to microUSB charging cable to charge the Bluetooth Clipper via computer.

The claimed talk time for the Jabra Clipper is 6 hours and standby time is up to 8 days. That's on par with what we found in our battery tests.

Conclusion

The Jabra Clipper has a really clever design. By breaking down two functions, Bluetooth and stereo, into two components it lets you choose which headset or headphone you wish to use for the stereo audio experience while providing you a reliable Bluetooth connection. While it lacks some of the high-end Bluetooth features such as voice guide and the multi-connect feature didn't work in our test, the Jabra Clipper covers the basics at an affordable price. It's small and easy to carry with you on the road, and it's easy to use.